Terra
by ThisAccountIsOnTheFritz
Summary: What if Elsa wasn't born with powers over ice? What if they were powers over the earth and its plants? How would the story have changed?
1. Chapter 1

"Elsa! Elsa, wake up!"

"Go away, Anna!" the elder girl shoves her sister.

"I can't!" the little girl protests. "The sky's awake, so I'm awake!"

Elsa says nothing, pushing Anna off the bed. The younger girl pouts, and an idea forms in her head.

"Do you want to build a plant man?"

The older girl's dirt brown eyes snap open and she sighs, pushing off the covers. "How did you discover my weakness in so few years?"

Anna giggles and pulls her out the room and down the hall, strawberry-blonde hair flying. She sits on the rail and slides down, whereas Elsa walks down the stairs, shushing her squealing sibling.

"Anna, be quiet!" she whispers in vain. Anna manages to drag Elsa into a large room, closing the gigantic doors, then running over to Elsa.

"Do the magic! Do the magic!" she giggles again, clapping her hands.

Elsa smiles. "Okay…." She rolls her hands and puts them on the ground. There's a slight rumbling sound, and vines shoot through cracks in the flooring. Anna half-screams in delight and begins jumping up and down. The two sisters make different things: hedges that look like creatures; slides of flowers; and the crowning achievement – a plant man made of soft vines.

"Hi, I'm Olaf, and I like warm hugs!" Elsa says in a silly voice, pretending to be Olaf. Anna squeals and grabs Olaf's "hands" and pulls him out to dance.

Eventually, though, the tiny girl gets tired of this and climbs a mound of roses, jumping and shouting, "Catch me!"

Elsa smiles and chuckles at first, catching Anna with soft mounds of flowers and leaves, but when the little girl begins to speed up, Elsa starts to get worried. "Anna, slow down!"

The girl pays no heed to her sister's warnings, jumping once more. Elsa slips on a vine and sends a panicky bolt of magic towards Anna, accidentally striking her in the head.

Elsa hurries over to her sister, holding her fragile form in her hands. A lock of Anna's hair begins to turn a dark gold, like Elsa's, and the girl begins to cry. "Mom! Dad!"

The two girls' parents burst into the room after a few more calls for her parents, and immediately pick up their comatose daughter.

The family leaves right away, promising Elsa that they know someone who can save Anna and help Elsa control her powers.

None of them notice their tiny tail: a boy with blonde hair and his reindeer have noticed the vegetation following the family's horses, springing up in the footsteps of the horse farther behind. He is curious, and mounts his reindeer, following the distraught parents and their daughters.

The girls' father unmounts his horse in an empty clearing. Elsa glances worriedly at her mother. Iduna shrugs her shoulders and turns her attention to her husband, who has begun calling out into the clearing.

"Help! My daughter is hurt! Can you help her?" The many boulders within the area begin to move, causing Elsa to gasp.

"They're rock trolls!"

Indeed, they are. The oldest one walks up and holds his hand up to feel Anna's head where the power struck her. "Hmm. Yes, this is only a head wound, so it should be easy to heal. You were lucky. If it had been her heart, it would have been harder. However, she will need to have her memories changed so that this doesn't happen again."

"You mean… she won't remember I have powers?" Elsa asks, clutching her hands to her chest.

"Yes. I feel that until you master your powers, it is the safest course of action. Your powers, Elsa, will only grow," the troll replies, creating images in the air to show her. "There is a great beauty in it." The figure for Elsa creates a blooming flower. "But also great danger." The flower bursts in a flood of red light, and Elsa gasps. "You must learn to control it. Fear will be your enemy." The figures of other people jump Elsa's shadow, making her whimper and grab onto her mother.

Her father wrapped his arms around her. "I'm sure that she can learn."

In the following days, Elsa learns that her father's environment for her learning is in a closed off castle, hiding from everyone, including Anna. The younger princess, however, is not easily discouraged.

"Elsa?" Anna knocks on her sister's closed door. "Do you want to build a plant man?" she sings. "Come on, let's go and play. I never see you anymore. Come out the door: it's like you've gone away! We used to be best buddies and now we're not. I wish you would tell me why! Do you want to build a plant man? It doesn't have to be a plant man!"

Elsa, fearful for her sister, replies with a heavy heart, "Go away, Anna!"

Anna's lower lip trembles. "Okay, bye."

"Elsa?" Anna knocks on her sister's door for the first time since she turned fifteen last week. "Do you want to build a plant man?" she sings, as is tradition. "Or ride our bike around the halls? I think some company is overdue. I've started talking to the pictures on the walls!" She looks at a picture and says, "Hang in there, Joan," before continuing her song. "It gets a little lonely, all the empty rooms, just watching the hours tick by!" The young princess sits down heavily and begins clicking her tongue, waiting for a response she knows won't come.

 **xXx**

Elsa and Anna's parents go on a trip to their cousin Rapunzel's wedding the next week, and while Anna handles it with a simple, "I'll miss you," Elsa is otherwise frantic.

"Do you have to go?" she asks, vines creeping up around her, deep brown eyes flashing with fear.

"Oh, Elsa," her mother sighs. "It's only for a few days."

But the King and Queen never return. Their ship is torn apart in a lightning storm, never to be seen again.

And Elsa becomes more and more reclusive in the days leading up to the funeral, refusing to leave her room.

"Elsa?" Anna knocks tentatively. "Please. I know you're in there. People are asking where you've been. They say, 'Have courage,' and I'm trying to. I'm right out here for you. Just let me in!" Anna begins crying quietly and asks through tears and sniffles, "Do you want to build a plant man?"

She never gets her answer.


	2. Chapter 2

_Three years later…_

Twenty-one. Elsa is twenty-one today. She bites her lip. She doesn't know if she can do this without her father.

Anna, however, takes the news in stride. Well, to be honest, she's not even awake yet.

"Princess Anna?" Kai, the butler, knocks on the younger princess's door. "Princess Anna?"

"I'm awake!" the girl calls, shooting up with massive bedhead and one strand of hair in her mouth before sinking back into her bed and snoring loudly.

"Princess Anna?"

"What?"

"You'll be late for your sister's coronation."

The girl yawns. "It's Coronation Day?" She suddenly sits upright, spitting hair out of her mouth and looking at the outfit on the mannequin. "It's Coronation Day!"

She quickly puts on the dress, which consists of a black bodice with blue and magenta motif, long, dark-green sleeves, and a full, olive-green skirt with pink, gold, and teal motif. She brushes through her rat's-nest hair and pulls it back into a bun, taking some of the hair in the front and making a braided headband. She looks around the room quickly, finally finding the maroon necklace and green hairpiece and clipping both in place. She then skidded out of her room, nearly missing Kai and Gerda on her way down the hall.

She begins to hum a tune under her breath and skips down through the halls.

She gasps in amazement. "The window is open! So's that door! I didn't know they did that anymore!" She then giggles a little. "Hey, that rhymed!" She then twirls, silently challenging herself to create a song describing the millions of combating feelings she has, just like Elsa used to do when they were kids, as the staff scuttle around the castle, trying to get every little detail just right for the coronation of the Anna's less enthusiastic sister.

Elsa, unbeknownst to her younger sibling, is also in a singing mood, but for the opposite reason. The elder girl has always been one for singing to release her emotions instead of letting her powers loose. She mutters the mantra that she has long ago put to music and sings her fears under her breath as she faces the picture of her parents that hangs in her room. The one that has always given her such strength. The strength to live and carry on the cool façade of a woman unafraid to rule Arendelle. The mask she has always worn when forced to face the people. Her shaking hands pick up the scepter and orb, and hazelnut eyes watch in dismay as small vines, stemming from the palms of her hands, creep up the sides of the holy objects. The frightened girl quickly drops the objects and pulls on her long, brown, leather gloves that have protected her people for so long.

In her mind, a thousand curses are being screamed as she looks at herself in the mirror, trying to find any cracks or flaws in her emotionless expression, and ends up thoroughly examining her features: her long, golden-brown hair, so unlike her parents' or sister's; her chestnut-brown eyes, which seem to stare into your soul; her honeyed skin that has refused to pale in pallor despite years of being inside, away from the sun. And like the plants she creates, she feels that something within her has withered with those many years of being cooped up and away from the outside world.

She quickly shakes her head. No. Conceal. Don't feel. Don't let them know. They can never know. Fear is the enemy. Emotion is the enemy.

Conceal. Don't feel. Everything will be fine.

 **xXx**

Everything is _not_ fine. Elsa winces slightly when the priest tells her she must take her gloves off before solidifying her masks once more. She grabs the holy objects, not missing the familiar feeling of dirt pooling in the palms of her hands. She smiles, hoping it looks convincing enough, noticing Cousin Rapunzel and her husband, Eugene, in the crowd. She also notices the ginger noble making goo-goo eyes at her sister, and she's internally arching a brow; from the look on her sister's face, Anna knows who this is and is actually flirting back. (Not that Elsa is surprised at that fact. Out of the two, Anna is definitely the one more likely to return the affections of something living. But she _is_ surprised that her baby sister, whom she didn't think had been out of the castle in a while, knew and was flirting with a reasonably handsome man. Now _that_ was unexpected.)

The new queen is soon told that she may set down the royal objects and for that she is grateful. She swiftly redons her gloves and glides towards her sister, who is wearing a dress is shades of green not unlike her elder sibling's.

"Hey," she says tentatively, almost like one would speak to an animal – experimentally, trying to communicate but also trying not to scare away a potential friend.

It takes Anna a few moments, but she finally gets it. "Oh, hey, _me_? Oh, yeah, hey!" The younger girl is definitely more enthusiastic than her awkward older sister, excited that her quiet, reserved sister is finally talking to her after years of lonely silence.

"You look… beautiful," Elsa says quietly, a faint smile on her face. Her sister looks so graceful, like their mother, but with their father's hair and eyes. She winces, though, every time she sees that one lock of honey-brown hair among the strawberry-blonde ones.

Anna trips over her words, too full of fighting emotions to even think about her wording. "You look beautiful-er. I mean, not that you look fuller, but, you know, more beautiful –" The young princess babbles on, trying to correct her statement. She does mean it, though. Elsa has matured beautifully. Her long hair is pulled back into a braided bun, and her dark green dress highlights the woman's gorgeous chestnut-coloured eyes.

The elder sibling chuckles slightly at her sister's constant chatter; it reminds her so much of when she was young. Suddenly, both sniff they air as a new, tantalizing aroma fills the room.

"Is that –" Elsa begins incredulously.

"Chocolate!" the two say together, giggling, and the young queen is about to say something when someone interrupts her.

"Your Majesty," Kai announces with utmost dignity. "The Duke of Weaseltown."

"Weselton! It's Weselton!" the man shouts, enraged. He's thin and sallow, with faded grey hair and a maniacal gleam in his beady eyes.

"Yes. Weselton," Kai says with the slightest hint of disdain.

The elderly duke sniffs and turns his attention back to the two sisters. "Your Majesty, I must say that the new trade agreements are doing delightfully."

Elsa nods. "I am looking forwards to future trade with Weselton."

"I was wondering if you would accompany me on the dance floor."

The new queen laughs, a mischievous look in her eye. "Oh, I'm afraid I can't dance. But my sister would love to!" She all but shoves Anna into the duke's waiting arms, where he begins to dance in an odd, embarrassing fashion that causes the young princess to send a look of 'Help!' to her sister, who is too busy cracking up to notice.

Anna soon feels herself falling away from the duke, who is doing some sort of eccentric dance move that looks like he's having a seizure. She lets out a startled cry, flailing her arms, and finds herself being caught by none other than the handsome young prince she'd run into (literally) earlier.

He smiles charmingly, and Anna knows that, beyond the shadow of a doubt, she is in love.


End file.
